Bloodmage's new debuffs

Slartibartfast wrote on the Clan Lord Sentinel:

* Big changes to cripple/disable as discussed in the other threads. High level summary is: New ability called hamstring which reduces DPS and speed, some number tweaking on the other abilities, and now training in either ability helps all three equally. (So if you had 30 ranks in cripple and 40 in disable, you effectively have 70 ranks in cripple, disable, and hamstringing now.)

* Inferno adds a bit more darkus to your inferno swing based on your health, per rank in inferno. The bonus darkus is about what one rank of bloodblade gives.

 I had given up all hope that the changes to the debuffs would ever actually happen. I had thought that Slartibartfast had stopped all work on Clan Lord entirely and was a bit upset, but tried to accept it. Probably it's why I started played Moon Kitty more often as well as being more wanted as a healer than as a bloodmage.

Now though, the changes to spirit makes me really eager to find a way to use Jeanne in a hunt. No, I'm not thinking of going back to the Estuary hunt because the thought of having to be more concerned with people's tags instead of fighting is too depressing. That and I need a ton more ranks!

Still, I think I will try to do something. These changes make being a Bloodmage sound exciting or, at the very least, less annoying.

Thanks Slartibartfast!

My first visit to Lugubrion's Castle

Lugubrion's Castle has two entrances. One is, I believe, somewhere in the Marsh and requires you to be a Thoom to use. The other is found in the Mountain Glen and requires a Mystic with sufficient illusion breaking skill to allow anyone to enter.

Recently Stinkfist had a Pirates of Lok'Groton & Friends Fun Fun Lootin' Time and I attended to lend my healing support. I'll put some pictures I took a bit later but I wanted to write down my thoughts and impressions of the castle before I forget.

Firstly, the only information I had about Lugubrion's Castle was from the Thoom hunting party that used to explore there. Maybe the Mystic illusion wasn't always there or maybe people just didn't know about it. The impression I got from reading their reports was that the castle is a dangerous place and the water guardians are tough. When it was suggested as an idea as a possible location for our small group I was a bit wary, but figured that departing was worth it to be able to go to a new place.

The gardens outside the castle were lovely and really connected you to nature. The rain added to the peacefulness and tranquility of the scene. I would have liked to explore more but we soon went to the castle itself and passed by two large lion statues. Feodoric explained that there several instances of lions used in the castle. I wonder why Lugubrion picked lions to decorate his castle.

Once in we discovered that Diotima didn't know much about the castle aside from pointing out one set of doors we shouldn't go through since they lead to the Ethereal Plane. Grateful for the warning we headed west and went in one door after the other.

For the most part Lugubrion's Castle was empty. Every room and hallway showed signs of extensive water damage. Sure it was raining outside but that didn't explain why so much of the floor was rotting away or why rooms were flooded or why mushrooms were allowed to grow.

We eventually ran into a few employees who weren't happy to see us. I guess they keep on doing what they were hired to do even though Lugubrion himself seems to have left the castle a while ago. We did find a weapon's room with a great looking glaive which I think we all wanted. Sadly they weren't selling them for any price.

We wandered around more and surprisingly were able to stick together for the most part. The few Watery Guardians and floating Watery Bolts were dispatched with ease. They probably would be more dangerous if we had a lot more of them, but then again I was the only one healing and we only had Stinkfist and Gremlins as our fighters.

Lugubrion spent a lot of time and effort making a gigantic castle only to fill it with absolutely nothing of importance and then he's letting it all go to waste. Is this on purpose because he has somewhere more important to be and figures he can just repair it when he gets back? He allowed Thooms to gain entrance which means that if he didn't want us exploring he could have shut down that entrance as well as the illusion that enables anyone to enter. I wonder if we'll ever get the chance to find out.

Regardless we eventually found our way to a huge library filled with all manner of books. Some were making noises, others were glowing and a deep mist covered more. There were books covering many different topics from navigating the water to the Ethereal Plane, magical barriers, creation myths, and more. Unfortunately some books were ruined by the water and others couldn't be read due to the language or them being blank.

We were gathering to leave and explore some more when we found something new and amazing. We found 2 scrolls and a book lying on the floor able to be picked up and read in-depth. One was on "Dwarven Satire & humor" another on "sylvan carvings and carving" and I have no information on what the third one was.

Stinkfist decided to return to town immediately and give them to the Castle Alliance which is looking for books to build a library. However, we ended up going back to the entrance and then heading east to explore a bit more but skipped going into the side-rooms along the way and didn't find anything of note.

After gathering in the Castle Alliance we found Dekkins the librarian to be eagerly awaiting our arrival, although he was a bit shocked at us stealing the books from Lugubrion. We assured him that if he came back for them we could handle whatever he threw at us. Dekkins turned out to have a bookish sense of humor, which makes sense given that he's a librarian.

He told us that we could keep the books while he prepared the library to keep them. Apparently he has let all of the shelves get dusty and damp and they were in no condition to hold books or scrolls. We also got some bonus experience for science.

Stinkfist decided to hold another book hunting party next Saturday at 2 p.m. and you can use this time link to find out what it is in your time. We have a list of possible places to find books and will decide where to go based on who shows up.

Not sure why the special scrolls and book decided to make an appearance now since Stinkfist told me they weren't discovered before. It has been a few years since the Thoom group explored Lugubrion's Castle so maybe the magic of the place just took longer to work. Whatever the reason it was exciting to be present for Pirate Science.

Debuffs on the way?

Repairing my Sungem.

I finally reached the 900 respia message after reaching 350 faustus which took a lot longer than expected. I had no idea my respia was as low as it was as I thought it would have been a lot closer to 900. That might explain why my self-heal was a bit poorer than expected as well.

I'm on to training with Higgrus now with my aim getting to 450 before returning to AnDeux Faure until faustus reaches 400. I think I need the extra health as my self-heal isn't one of my strong suits. My sespus is low and compared to other healers so is my respia. I have no plans on getting a lot of additional sespus, although I may get to the next message, and I think 50 higgrus will help me out a lot more than getting 50 respia.

Estuary is going smoothly. It seems that even if I hadn't decided to switch from Jeanne to Moon Kitty I probably would have had to anyway. The numbers of healers has not been high lately with just Lorikeet and myself many days. Even though Azel told me she'd switch to her healer that would have swapped an excellent fighter (Azel) with a mediocre Bloodmage (Jeanne). Even though Mujin-kun doesn't need anyone else to dominate anywhere she chooses to go most of the time, I prefer to enjoy fighting not watching someone else do the fighting while I lay fallen.

The next expansion has all of the required materials and I'm looking forward to it being done. Based on what Yappy has said on his blog, that is still being worked on which makes me happy just to know what's happening. So many GMs refuse to talk to the players that it's easy for me to think that no work is being done at all.

In fact, Slartibartfast actually posted on our forums to tell us that he's working on the debuffs as promised. All 3 debuffs in one trainer and he's tweaked the blood so that we get more spirit back based on our health. That means even if it's a slaughter we'll get more blood back than we used to which means we might be able to debuff at weaker areas even if we don't vanquish the stuff there. I say might because I don't know if anyone's tested it (I really have to do that.) which may mean our debuffs will be usable in more areas. It would be great to be able to debuff and use hemorrhage in areas where I vanquish stuff without running out of spirit.

Even though Jeanne is still going to get to 100 Crato Defeal (spirit trainer) because better to be safe than sorry if the numbers get tweaked as Slartibartfast threatened to do if they were too good. :-(

Time to go to bed. Sweet dreams!

Pretty in Pink

Parrots are almost as thickheaded as Mystics

Parrots can rarely be found in the Estuary and can be captured by Full Mystics and made their pet. It's not easy for them to be found because they attack anyone on sight and, try as I might to lose this one, kept finding its way back to us. I think someone ended up accidentally killing it when it wouldn't leave us alone and just got in the way.

Ooh la la!

Mephisto asked me to get him a pink shirt when I was in the Estuary and I must say he looks pretty darn cute.

I reached the first of many healer milestones when I attained 350 faustus, which makes me slightly faster than I used to be. It's no match for the real healer speed demons, but I'm out of newbie territory at least.

I was going to switch to training with Higgrus for 50 more lessons, when I decided to get to the 900-999 message with Respia which will give me a 2.57:1 respia to faustus ratio. It's a bit lower than the 3:1 ratio I'd like but I'll correct that in due time, and as long as I don't go under 2:1 ratio I'll be fine. I still haven't finished with Respia which surprises me as I thought I was a lot closer to 900 respia than I was.

When I'm done with Respia I plan on getting another 50 higgrus and then back to AnDeux Faure until 400 faustus and then another 50 higgrus. Maybe I'll be able to pass into 7th circle after this, since I've been healing her over 50% so far. Once I'm done with this I have no idea what to do so I'll probably end up with AnQuart Faure until I figure it out.

Are there any GMs left?

I'm evaluating whether to start any projects with Clan Lord, and I've started wondering if there are any GMs left, aside from whomever is working on the Estuary.

Yappy used to talk about the bugs he was fixing, but his blog hasn't been updated in a long time. Does he still work on Clan Lord? Slartibartfast pops up every now and again to tell us he's still working on Bloodmage debuffs and then disappears with nothing changed. I don't think Eldon likes the Clan Lord Sentinel so he posts rarely and probably doesn't read anything there. Everyone else that I know of has either left or works behind the scenes.

I just wonder if anyone is working on bugs, or new features, or new items, or new areas (besides Estuary which is awesome), or new skills, or new stories, or continuing old stories, or anything at all. There are a ton of things a person could be working on if they wanted to.

I don't like the uncertainty.

Why I haven't been going on hunts (long, semi-ooc)

A pause in the action.

It's kind of strange that the entry following the one in which I exalt at Jeanne finally getting out of the library I'm explaining why I haven't left the library at all in the past two weeks.

I'm going to be using some OOC (out of character) terms and explanations because I don't want to bother with finding an IC (in character) reason. Even if I did it might just muddy the issue which is contrary to what I want.

For a few weeks I have gone on Azel's Estuary Hunt from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and then Mujin's Hunt from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. That's a minimum of 4.5 hours every day devoted to Clan Lord and I began to feel that was too much.

Plus, I was getting a bit bored with healing in Ash City. There was some excitement, but there just wasn't much challenge. I could entertain myself with reading blogs or sites at the same time but can't easily do that on the computer I have. It's an old PowerMac G4 and a small 17" monitor and I have dial-up all of which add up to not being able to see the Clan Lord screen and the browser at the same time and any time I open up a web page that means I can't do anything in Clan Lord due to lack of bandwidth.

The only job I have that does pay me money requires me to write news articles and seeing an article I wanted to write get snatched up by someone else, thus denying me needed dollars, was painful.

Yes, I know I need a new computer but I also need a job and finding work is damn near impossible.

Besides, even if I could do this I'm not sure I'd want to after seeing Lorikeet standing off in the corner while fighters fall left and right and me being unable to keep up with the damage being done. That always frustrates me and I don't want to mimic that behavior.

Frustration is why I haven't been going to Azel's Estuary Hunts either. I found myself becoming very negative and saying only negative comments, especially to Azel, and I don't want her to think that I'm only thinking negative thoughts or are a negative person.

I just don't like the tagging mentality hunts seem to always have. It's tough enough having to keep in mind what you've tagged so you don't do too much damage before everyone else has tagged. Plus you have to remember what you haven't tagged so you can tag it before everyone else kills it. Then there's Mujin-kun who basically can kill everything in the Estuary just by looking at it and there's no telling when she'll decide something has to die even if it's at high health and you're trying to get to it to tag it first. There have been many times when I've been running to a beast or two trying to be able to hit and just as I get to them, Mujin-kun kills them before I have a chance to swing. I don't expect her to remember what everyone has or hasn't hit but she can see me running up to her if she's paying attention. Maybe she thinks "I don't need Jeanne to help me kill these things. I'll kill them before she gets here!" while I'm thinking "I haven't hit those things. Please don't kill them yet!

The tagging mentality also means that no one pays much attention to anyone else. It's as if the only things they see are themselves and the beasts. It doesn't matter if they make it difficult for you to get out of their way, thus trapping you and making you fall and miss tags. It doesn't matter if they lead a bunch of stuff to you which makes you fall and miss tags. It doesn't matter if a bunch of stuff is on red and attacking the healers because they've already tagged it. Then when you kill the stuff on red to help the Healers they then kill the stuff you haven't tagged before you can get to them. It's as if the minimal strategy Clan Lord has is just thrown out of the window and it's a purely chaotic environment where no one tries to work with anyone else. As long as Lorikeet and Mujin-kun are up they could care less about who else misses tags as long as they get theirs.

It makes me frustrated and it's no good asking people to be more considerate because the only thing they wait for are Rangers getting their last hits. If a Ranger wants to get a last hit on something it's even harder to tag because people will be focused on keeping that person alive and everyone else doesn't matter. I admit to doing this on Moon Kitty at times although I've tried to put a stop to it if there's a lot of stuff so the fallen doesn't miss out on too many tags.

It's not that I don't like missing tags because of the missed experience, although that's why I'm there in the first place and that is a factor in my frustration. It's just that after a certain amount of missed tags one begins to think that it would have been better to just stay in the library and that working so hard for no return is a waste of time and effort. One also thinks that they're not needed on the hunt at all and that maybe one's time is better spent elsewhere.

Although missing tags and experience are frustrating, I think that not being able to use all of the Bloodmage abilities is even more so. It seems like being able to use my Bloodblade damage as a big hit or over time could be useful depending on the circumstances. Being able to add extra damage with hemorrhage and weaken the beast with disable and/or cripple could help with healing. None of that matters because I have to keep on control mode to avoid doing too much damage, reducing the strength of a beast doesn't matter with regards to Mujin-kun, and hemorrhage uses more spirit than what I can replace with blood.

I'm reduced to running around desperately trying to hit everything before I fall without regard to tactics or what's stronger and should be killed first or the people around me and what they have or haven't tagged because I can barely keep up with my own tags much less everyone else and I can only hope I am not too inconsiderate in the process even though I try my hardest not to be.

THIS IS NOT FUN!

Anyway, I'm considering returning to Azel's Estuary Hunt but on Moon Kitty and not on Jeanne because I know that as long as the hunt contains Rangers who need last hits and taggers, it will continue to be frustrating for me. I also need to return the armor she borrowed from Azel. Well, Azel will have to accept me back of course and considering I disappeared without a word she may be very angry at me and not want me around. If that's her decision I will just have to accept it as my due for being an inconsiderate jerk.

Jeanne may as well be retired and I may just use her for role-playing purposes or if I want to revive the Sun Dragon Clan and/or Catenae for anything or if I want to go out hunting for coins. If I have the opportunity to go on a tactical hunt instead of a tagging hunt then I'll certainly go but I doubt those exist at all. I still like the Bloodmage class and it has a lot of nifty tricks and tools no other class can even approach, but being on a tagging hunt fills me with a murderous rage that can only remain unfulfilled.

Once Himitsu gets to a higher level and becomes a Ranger herself she'll be much more fun to run around and kill stuff with. Unfortunately this won't happen for a long while. I should give her some coins so she can spend time in the more expensive library.

As to Mujin-kun's hunt I'm less certain I want to return simply because her hunts are longer. Going on one 1.5 hour hunt every day is acceptable but then going on another hunt immediately after for another 2-2.5 hours is too much.

Therefore I think I'll apologize to Azel and ask to return on Moon Kitty and tell Mujin-kun I won't be going to her hunts.

Gosh this was a long post.

Jeanne gets out of the library!

I've included a few pictures of today's hunt to the Estuary and you'll see that it's not me as Moon Kitty, but Jeanne. Yes! I've actually been able to leave the library as Jeanne and go on a hunt where I get kills and vanquishes. I can still scarcely believe it myself but thanks to Azel's generosity it's possible. She said that after she got the Reed Cat morph that she'd switch to her healer and I could bring Jeanne instead of Moon Kitty as a reward for my (mostly) reliable healing. Ironically enough, we've had so many healers lately that Azel hasn't needed to switch at all.

I'm still not incredibly good as either a fighter or Bloodmage, and I still need a lot more ranks in the Bloodmage skills, the Bloodblade itself (200 is too low), and more health and regia to be a force to be reckoned with. Right now I have the following planned out as to what I want to get and when with the numbers in brackets being what I currently have.

1. Cryptus to 100 (20 - 29)
2. Dantus to 50 (0)
3. Crato Defeal to 100 (50)
4. Bloodblade to 400 (200)
5. Stedfustus until Troilus is 50 (30 - 39) or Histia is 400 (300), whichever comes first
6. Troilus to 50 or Histia to 400

However this plan was made on me spending most of the time in the library and from my experience in the Estuary some skills will be more useful sooner rather than later.

I think that instead of getting cripple to 100 I'm just going to get it to 50 and wait until the debuffs get reworked to put any more ranks in it or disable. I'm also going to get another 50 Crato Defeal sooner rather than later because feign death and cripple take up a good amount of spirit, and I've had to stop using hemorrhage on a regular basis because of it. Inferno is a good ability under the right limited circumstances. Circumstances which don't usually happen in the Estuary so I can put that off until last. I'd like more hemorrhage but that takes spirit and if I don't have the atkus from enough Bloodblade I won't be able to use my special abilities so I can put that off until later as well.

The question then becomes do I get Bloodblade first or Stedfustus, keeping in mind that it will take quite a long time to get noticeable ranks in whatever I choose. On the one hand I have enough atkus to hit everything in the Estuary but fall a lot so more health will be useful. On the other hand, I tend to not get healed much over red health so how much usefulness I get out of the extra health might not be that much. However if I want to go to places where I need lots of atkus it would be good to get the Bloodblade sooner rather than later.

1. Cryptus to 50 (20 - 29)
2. Crato Defeal to 100 (50)
3. Bloodblade to 300 (200)
4. Stedfustus until Histia is 400 (300)
5. Aneurus to 150 (100)
   
6. Dantus to 50 (0)

It'll take a long time to get here and I'll probably adjust it over and over again along the way but I think it's more realistic than the one I had before.